Francis Ford Coppola is preoccupied with time. The passage of it, the halting of it, even its cyclical nature through the repetition of events in history. The 85-year-old legendary filmmaker's relationship with time is on full display in his latest film, the self-funded, PR-crisis-ridden "Megalopolis." Unfortunately, a lack of self-awareness on the part of the script and its author leads to an often nonsensical and unclear narrative that ultimately clouds Coppola's often-dizzying, grand ideals about empires, utopia, and man's place in them. Ironically, this leaves the viewer wondering how Coppola's place in cinema history will be affected.
The marketing team has already tried to position "Megalopolis" as misunderstood and ahead of its time. They may be right about the misunderstood part; it's difficult to understand something that is largely incomprehensible. As for the "ahead of its time" narrative, again, time is certainly a factor here, but "Megalopolis" is too confused about itself to be prescient. Perhaps what's so remarkable about this divisive film is that you have some folks (notably, the team behind the film) calling it ahead of its time and others accusing the director and his creation of being out of touch. Only this film that is so concerned with and confounded by the concept of time could manage to receive both of these extreme interpretations.
The final say is up to each filmgoer, but one thing is clear: Coppola and the film's marketing campaign seem to be going out of their way to convince audiences that "Megalopolis" is a bold vision that people will look back on fondly. However, virtually every attempt to position the film as such has managed to instead bolster the argument that "Megalopolis" is one spectacular "swing and a miss." Let's take a look at how the film's rocky development, uncompromising vision, and baffling promotional tactics have all failed to convey the filmmaker's supposed intent.
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Image via Festival de Cannes & Xfranksun
“Megalopolis” has been in development since the early 1980s. Coppola would frequently return to the ambitious project between films over the course of the following four decades. The premise, an architect living in a fictional city, “New Rome,” who plans to build a utopia, always seemed to be a tough sell given the epic scale of its concept and the difficulties of financing such a project. It did not help that several of Coppola’s films during this period significantly underperformed at the box office. By 2019, Coppola announced his desire to return to the project despite having taken a lengthy hiatus from filmmaking—his last film prior being 2011’s “Twixt,” a largely forgotten and ill-fated foray into horror.
Much has been written about the film’s turbulent financing and production process. Rather than work through the Hollywood system, Coppola did what any ridiculously wealthy man who did not want to hear any criticism would do: he self-funded the project by investing an alleged $120 million of his own finances, selling a portion of his winery in order to make it happen.
Coppola is not the only once-great Oscar-winning filmmaker to self-fund a conflict-ridden passion project this year (Kevin Costner’s four-part “Horizon: An American Saga,” anyone?). One has to wonder if the purpose of self-financing these passion projects is to stick it to the industry or to avoid having to hear that these legacy directors may be in over their heads and out of their depth.
Completing production for “Megalopolis” was no easy feat. Coppola frequently allowed an extensive amount of improvisation on set that sometimes radically altered the shooting schedule. He fired the majority of the visual effects team midway through production, prompting the rest of the department to walk. Additionally, Coppola notably cast problematic actors known for erratic behavior, like Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight, a choice Coppola claimed was intentional. There were even allegations of Coppola’s own inappropriate behavior on set, which he has denied. Regardless of what to make of these accusations, his staunch defense of actors who have brushed up against “cancel culture” definitely does not help the optics of that situation.
Then, there was the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May. Even the most strenuous production processes can overcome early backlash if the film is well-received, which “Megalopolis” would have needed to achieve here… but critical response was divisive at best. While Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film “a formally and visually audacious experiment,” Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian considered “Megalopolis” to be “a bloated, boring, and bafflingly shallow film.”
The kinder reviews seem to be appreciative of the bold, uncompromising vision, but virtually every review from major publications acknowledge outdated, confusing elements of the narrative that fall flat. Perhaps the film’s defenders are ever so slightly biased because of their love for Coppola’s legacy. Following its Cannes premiere, Coppola struggled to find a distributor for the film, eventually finding one in Lionsgate but only under the condition that Coppola will pay for all the marketing costs. This was probably not the deal Coppola had in mind heading into Cannes.
All this to say, the marketing campaign for “Megalopolis” has had to weather a lot of storms ahead of its theatrical release… so many storms, in fact, that the campaign then became its own problem. In August, Lionsgate had to take down the film’s trailer after it was discovered that the pull quotes they used were entirely fabricated. The purpose of these quotations was to argue that many of Coppola’s previous works from “The Godfather” to “Apocalypse Now” were initially panned and misunderstood. That’s a tough argument to make considering that both films received Best Picture nominations (the former, of course, won the award).
Clearly, the intent of the marketing campaign has been and continues to be focused on positioning the film as ahead of its time—a future classic from one of the greatest directors alive. Unfortunately, the embarrassing bumps in the road—the on-set mishaps, the cringeworthy distribution deal, and the laughable trailer—have only made “Megalopolis” even harder to take seriously. Sure, there will always be a group of audience members interested in what an auteur like Francis Ford Coppola has to offer, but the vast majority of the “Megalopolis” hype from audiences is ironic.
Coppola can parade around as many well-respected Hollywood megaweights to back his project as he wants, and he certainly tried. The week before its release date, Robert De Niro moderated a lively discussion at a New York screening that apparently veered way off topic. Once again, Coppola’s attempt to have his film taken seriously ended up making him look more lost and confused.
As for the quality of the film itself, well, Coppola is definitely saying something about time. New York City has been reimagined as New Rome, with some characters speaking in full Shakespearean dialogue while others are sporting a classic New York accent. Some interiors look like 1920s Prohibition-era sets, while other exteriors look like 2024 Manhattan. Actors wear Greco-Roman garb in some scenes and casual beanies and jackets in others. The ultimate effect is more of a Comic-Con cosplay aesthetic than a cohesive vision of an alternate future.
To make matters worse, one of the film’s “groundbreaking” moments occurs in a press conference scene when Adam Driver’s on-screen character answers a question from a real-life audience member—unfortunately, the “live” element only happens at select screenings. While some audience members have praised the scene as undeniably boundary-pushing, others have mocked the meta-theatrical moment as awkward and bizarre. Some folks think it has never been done before; others liken the moment to a theme park experience.
This scene and its response might as well exemplify the entire journey of “Megalopolis.” The film has managed to occupy a strange space of being both completely unique and wildly outdated, However, the endless number of fires Coppola’s marketing and publicity teams have had to put out—some of which they started themselves—have made Coppola’s grand project more of a punchline, a project so bonkers it has to be seen to be believed and not in a good way.
It’s unfortunate that this will be the legacy of “Megalopolis” because it’s rare to see an epic film from a legacy director that is not part of a superhero franchise, a sequel, or otherwise based on beloved intellectual property. Clearly, Coppola had a bold vision and did not want to risk damaging that vision by following the traditional Hollywood route from development to production to distribution. That’s admirable in this day and age, but listening to criticism is an important part of the artistic process, and one should not have to label one’s own work as ahead of its time to get the general public to take it seriously. In fact, audiences are the people who get to decide if an artist’s work is ahead of its time, not the artist himself. The ways in which Coppola and his team have combated criticism has led to this moment. Like the protagonist of the film itself, Coppola is trying to paint a picture of “Megalopolis” as some kind of timeless classic, a utopia if you will. However, in doing so, he has managed to become the architect of his film’s laughable reputation at nearly every turn.
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